Clique

Cliquey pencils
By Samantha Bader


I like pencils.
I think they are neat.
Nothing is better
On the first day of school
Than a bouquet
Of freshly sharpened pencils.

Some people only write in pen.
Some only with a traditional
DIXON Ticonderoga Number 2.
I like mechanical pencils.
I click best with them.
Get it?
I click with clicky pencils.
Not like cliques though.
Pencils aren’t cliquey.

Or are they?


There are fat pencils,
Blue pencils,
Yellow pencils,
Pencil pens,
Pencils that look like real pencils but are really clicky pencils

Fat pencils stay in kindergarten.
Blue ones in art class.
Yellow ones on Scantron tests.
Pencil pens in history class.
And those deceptive kind have a group all their own.

I’m not one for cliques.
I have fat, blue, yellow, pencil wannabes, and tricky clickies in my pencil pouch (which is really a pocket).

Why can’t they all just get along?
High schoolers like fat pencils too!
(I name mine…)
Blue pencils might really enjoy doing math!
Let them do math! Do not confine them to the world of fine art!
What if a pencil pen walked up to a real-looking pencil and laughed at him: “You are not a real pencil! You are a mechanical pencil!”
How would that make that tricky clicky pencil feel?
If I were him, I’d shoot right back at that pencil pen: “You’re not a real pencil either, you pencil pen. You may use graphite, but it’s liquid graphite and that makes you a pencil pen.”
A barrier has been crossed. A high one.
One never knows what’s on the other side of a high barrier such as this one.
A barrier has been crossed.
All because of an insignificant difference.
They both write for goodness sakes.


Pencils are cliquey.
But not all of them.




Hey!
Who’s the pencil here, anyway?


I think I’m beginning to understand…
Do you?